


(I Just Want to) Be Ok

by ind1e



Category: Football RPF
Genre: Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-24
Updated: 2014-11-24
Packaged: 2018-02-26 22:04:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,019
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2668025
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ind1e/pseuds/ind1e
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Getting back up after everything has stopped making sense.</p>
            </blockquote>





	(I Just Want to) Be Ok

**Author's Note:**

> So I’m not dead, and I actually wrote something. 
> 
> I swear to God, poor Marco, just, how does this happen? *cries a river* That boy needs protection and loving, and probably new ankles and bubble wrap. Also, I get that Mats/Marco is kind of not really a popular pairing, as some people see Mats as being a more older brother type figure toward Marco, but if you think about it, they're both 25, Mats only a little older, and maybe those older brother feelings can easily be interpreted as protective lover feelings? 
> 
> I'm trying out a sort of different writing style here, but looking back, I think I've just made things a little more choppy and disjointed. Oh well. Any typos or mistakes are mine, and I don’t even have an excuse if my English is terrible because I live in California. Oops. Lol. 
> 
> Sorry if this sucks.

_Open me up and you will see_

_I'm a gallery of broken hearts_

_I'm beyond repair, let me be_

_And give me back my broken parts._

  
\---

 

The moment he crumples to the ground, he doesn’t hear anything for a moment - not the cheering and chanting of the crowds, not the sharp whistling of the referee, not the shouts of his teammates, the other team, his coaches, the medics. Just white silence. Maybe, Marco thinks, he has gone deaf. Then, he exhales, it all comes rushing back in a dizzying sickening blur, and this time, there is whiteness too - not silence, but searing pain.

 

\-----

 

“Maybe,” he says, to no one in particular as he lies in that hospital bed, the throbbing of his ankle dulled by the painkillers that do absolutely nothing for his shattered spirit and heart. “I’ve hit rock bottom.”

Marco says this, because if he’s hit it, then, he’s the lowest he can go, and there’s nowhere to go, but up. He doesn’t know if he could accept anything else, doesn’t know if he could survive another blow.

He closes his eyes and waits for the tears to come, but they don’t. He has no more tears to cry, because he just feels so done, so empty, so shredded, that he can’t even muster up the energy.

He wonders if this is the injury that will break him, once and for all.  

Marco thinks of Mats, back in Dortmund, closes his eyes to see his handsome smile, curly black hair, and the look his eyes that he has just for Marco - things he has blindly committed to his memory. He opens his eyes. He’s alone.

 

\-----

 

Mats gets a call from Marco at around three in the afternoon, and he doesn’t even let the phone finish ringing once before he answers, because it’s Marco, the light and love of his life, however cheesy that sounds, and Marco hasn’t been answering his thousands of texts, and Mats is going out of his mind with worry.

“I don’t think I can live like this anymore, Mats,” Marco whispers. “This cycle, it’s killing me.”

Marco then takes a deep shuddering breath. “I just got back home. Stop by...if you have time...please.”

Mats runs over red lights, and goes about twenty miles over the speed limit to get to Marco’s, because fuck, Marco needs him, and Mats isn’t there, and that is absolutely not okay.

 

\-----

 

When Marco looks up to see Mats there, he attempts to smile through utter heartbreak, as he presses his still shaking hands to his ribs to steady them. “Mats,” he says, as if he could somehow hide the fact that he was hurting from his best friend and lover, as if hurt did not pour from his very countenance.

“Marco,” Mats says softly, and drops to his knees next to him, stretching out his arms as if to pull the smaller blonde man to him.

“Don’t touch me!” Marco’s voice sounds like it is bordering on hysteria, and that is a little bit of how he feels. “If you touch me, I swear, I’ll fall apart, and God, I’m so fucking tired of falling apart, I could scream.”

Mats looks at him, and Marco probably looks like a cornered wild animal, hunched over in the corner of his own fucking bathroom, breathless sobs shaking his body as he begins to gasp again, the beginnings of another panic attack manifesting.  

Suddenly, Mats is around Marco, everywhere, taking away the bitterness and infusing the air Marco breathes with a scent, feeling, relief, that is purely Mats. Mats, doesn’t stop, he goes on and on forever, it seems. “Marco, love,” Mats whispers into the nape of Marco’s neck, wrapping his warmth around Marco’s shivery body.

 _Well,_ Marco thinks, tears tracing their way down his pale cheeks as he begins to weep in earnest, short stabbing sobs, that, by the tenseness of Mats’ body, hurt his boyfriend, probably as much as they hurt him. _He still has tears to cry after all._

“Why? Why? Why me?” he asks, his voice hoarse.

He knows that he doesn’t have the answer, Mats doesn’t have the answer, nobody has the answer.

Yet, as Mats presses kisses lazily on his forehead, Marco’s sobs slowly stop as his shoulders finally stop rocking them back and forth.

Mats, Marco thinks, is the only thing that keeps him grounded, keeps him firmly anchored. 

 

\-----

 

“How do I get back up?” he asks, when they are entwined in bed, albeit, awkwardly, as Marco’s casted leg rests on a pile of pillows, an ugly reminder and gash on an otherwise perfect scene. “After everything stops making sense?”

Mats huffs short breaths, hot on Marco’s skin. “You’re stronger and braver than you think,” he answers, quietly, steadily. "You can do it. I know you can."

“I just want to be okay.” Marco sighs, the hysteria of before giving way to defeat. “Maybe…” Marco hesitates. “I want to stop.”

Mats focuses his piercing gaze on Marco. “Listen to me,” he says, authoritatively, and Marco is reminded again, of why he is captain of Borussia Dortmund. “You cannot give up. Ten years from now, you will hang up your boots a legend, and these times will just be a dark smear in your memory. This too, shall pass. I _know_ this.”

“Fight it Marco, fight it,” Mats says, fiercely, gripping on to Marco's hands. "This won't beat you unless you let it, and you will not let it - I won't let it." 

“All right,” Marco whispers, and he revels in the strength that Mats can give him, warm and golden, running over the shattered pieces and fragments of his spirit, knitting them back together. 

“I’ll fight."

 _Love, and that was all_ , he thinks, tilting his head back and breathing in deeply into the security that is Mats. And then he lets the waves of sleep sweep him away.

 

\------

 

_I just want to feel today, feel today, feel today_

_I just want to feel something today_

_I just want to know today, know today, know today_

_Know that maybe I will be ok._

 

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed, although I feeling this was sort of all over the place, and I'm not satisfied with the ending at all. 
> 
> School and club volleyball have been incredibly hectic for me, but I love writing and reading all the fanfictions here, and I hope I'll be back a lot more regularly now, writing stories. 
> 
> xx. Indie.


End file.
